Lincoln 








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Book .fiSB H 






REV. (\ F. MUSSEY S DISCOURSE 



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DISCOURSE 



OCCASIONED BY THE 



ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN, 



DELIVERED IN THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, BATAVIA, N. T'., 



1 

Sunday Morning, April 23d, 1865. 



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BY CHARLES F. MUSSEY, 



II 

PASTOR. 



PUBLISHED BY REQUEST. 



B A T A V I A. 

PRINTED BY DANIEL D. WAITE. 
1865. 



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A rj r-^ 



DISCOURSE. 



*' HOAV ARE THE MIGHTY FALLEN." 2d SAJIUEL, I, 19. 

This is part of a lamentation of one mighty man over two others. 
In the providence of God, David was to come to the thi'one of Israel. 
He had been annointed by the prophet of the Lord. He expected 
■that God would fulfill his word concerning hira, but he had as yet 
BO assurance, but failh in God, that lie would ever be king. Saul 
had driven him from his sight, and hunted hira from the land. For 
safety he had escaped to Gath, and made alliance with Achish, its 
king. This alliance, during its continuance, was honorable to both 
parties. It was kept in good faith. But it was not to continue. 
The Philistines would make war upon Israel, and the other lords of 
the Philistines, from fear of David, insisted that he should not go 
up with them to battle. AcMsh compelled David and his men to 
return to the city of Ziklag, in which he dwelt. After his return, 
the Philistines joined battl« with Israel at Mount Gilboa. Israel was 
put to flight, and Saul and Jonathan were slain. When the messen- 
ger brought the news to Ziklag, instead of rejoicing that the death 
of Saul opened the Avay for him to the throne, David was smitten 
with grief. If ever he had felt hostility — there was no evidence that 
he had— it was now gone. His great and generous soul forgot 'all 
the injuries that he had suffei'ed, and was overwhelmed with anguish. 
The great love which he felt for Jonathan, reached even to Saul ; 
and as the flood-tide covers the smooljh and rough places alike within 
its limits, and at its height reveals not the inequalities of its bed, but 
only the glassy surface of the all-embracing element, so this love of 
David enveloped both father and son in pleasant remembrances: 
•*' Saul and Jonathan were lovely and pleasant in their lives, and in 
their death they were not divided ; they were swifter than eagles ; 
they were stronger than lions. Ye daughters of Israel weep over 
Saul, who clothed you in scarlet and other delights ; who put on 
ornaments of gold upon your apparel. How are the mighty fallen 
in the midst of the battle 1 O Jonathan, thou wast slain in thine 
high places. I am distressed for thee my brother Jonathan ; very 
pleasant hast thou been unto me ; thy love to me was wonderful, 
passing the love of women. How are the mighty fallen and the 
weapons of war perished." 



la the midst of the conflicting feelings that surge over the nation, 
in consequence of the crime and calamity that have fallen upon us 
as suddenly as a bolt of heaven from a clear sky, it is hardly possible 
for ns to contemplate any portion ot the divine word, or to discuss 
any human interest which does not lead us to, or is not associated 
with, the engrossing subject of our thoughts. In the tumult of feel- 
ing which rages in the individual mind and in the public mind ; in the 
midst ot griet, of the sense of irreparable loss, of wonder at the 
past, of fear for the future, of the stifling of the victorious joys of but 
yesterday ; in the awaking of retributive indignation, it may not be 
possible for us to think, or to speak of the death of our President, 
as we would speak before God and men, when our minds are calmed 
by submission to God's will, and our thoughts made clear by insight 
into God's developed purpose in the affliction. But think we must, 
and speak we must, and perhaps we may not do better now than to 
speak and think some thoughts suggested by our text — " How are 
the mighty fallen !" 

If these thoughts were not in the mind of David when he uttered 
his lament over Saul and Jonathan, you will see that they are legiti' 
mately suggested by his words. 

The first thought suggested by the text in connection with the death 
of President Lixcoln, is that a mighty man is fallen. Thank God, 
that instead of saying in our lament, as we feared we must, when 
the horrid intelligence of the crime flashed along the wires — how are 
the mighty fallen — we are permitted to restrict the language to one, 
and say — How is the mighty fallen. Our Secretary of State still 
lives, with hopeful prospect of recovery. Our President only is 
dead. 

It has been the lament of many good men, within the lives of 
some of us, who have hardly reached our prime, that the great men 
of the Republic were all gone ; that if perilous times should come, 
wWch seemed to be foretokened, there was none with clearer mind, 
and broader wisdom, and stronger arm, than other men to be our 
pilot, and hold our ship of state on her course through the storms 
that threatened, and through the deep channel bordered with rocks 
and shallows, from the sheltered waters of the arm of the sea on 
which she was launched, into the wide ocean of her new career and 
manifold, and almost infinite destiny. Men have longed for some of 
the great men of a former time ; lor a Webster, to announce first 
principles of our Government, with the great authority of his con^ 
stitutional wisdom, and massive eloquence ; for a Clay, to pour the 
oil of his conciliatory speech upon the troubled waters ; for an Adams, 
with his stores of wisdom learned from history and from a training 
in the early and growing life of the nation ; for a Hamilton, with 
his clear, broad, and penetrating statesmanship and organizing mind; 
for a Jay, Avith the irresistible discussions of his pen ; for a Franklin, 
with his great practical and versatile wisdom ; for a Jackson, with 
his ardent patriotism, and prompt and energetic and inflexible will ; 



tor a Washington, with that temperament of miucl and heart, of 
wisdom and of will, of self-poise, and control over others, of physi-. 
cal endurance and mental strength, ot that pure patriotism that 
always enkindled confidence and enthusiasm in patriotic hearts; fit 
to be the Father of a Country, grand in territorial extent, pure and 
humane in the principles of its life, self-controlling, and ever increas- 
ing in power to control the world. When the days of trial came, 
and the storm broke upon* us, men feared that our nation, freighted 
with the hopes of humanity, would go to w^'eck, not because she had 
not men enough to work the ship, but because she had not some 
great collossal man, whose voice should be heard above the roar 
of wind and wave, inspiring confidence, dii'ecting energy, and caus- 
ing the ship to wear away from the rocks into the deep channel of 
safety. As we see things to-day, we are led not to yearn for the 
mighty men of the more distant past, but to thank God that he has 
given us men adequate to the great issues at stake and work to be 
done, and to mourn that one of these noble men is fallen. 

Concerning President Lincoln it need not be said, in order to 
assure us that he was a mighty man, that he was the greatest man of 
the present time. — Perhaps it may not be best for us to confidently 
assert that he was not. — Other men may be too near us, in our per- 
sonal relations and interests, for us impartially to decide. As one 
stands in the vale of Chamonix, and looks up to the summits of the 
high Alps w'ithin his view, he will be likely at mid-day to think that 
two or three peaks are higher than the one which is pointed out to 
him as Mt. Blanc ; it is only when he rises before the sun, and sees 
which peak first glows in his morning gilding; or at evening, which 
shows last the purple of his setting, that one sees that his informant 
tells the truth. It may be that when the sun of fame, that now 
courses the heavens and reveals in full day, so many heads that 
tower above the valleys and the plains of humanity, shall sinkhelow 
the horizon of present action in our national life, that its««Mp|; 
light will rest latest upon the head of our Chief Magistrate yvho is 
just laid in an untimely grave. That President Lincoln was the 
greatest man of our time, I shall not assert ; but that he was a 
mighty man, is conspicuously evident. 

No President— '•Washington not excepted— has ever had so diffi- 
cult a task as the heritage and duty of his office. Treason encoun- 
tered him everywhere. Treason was in all the Southern States. It 
was in Congress. It was in the Cabinet of his predecessor. It had 
fed at the public tables. It had carved the joints, and distributed 
the food, and picked the bones of the Nation. It built its nest in 
the Departments of the Capital. It hatched its brood under the warm 
feathers of the American Eaarle. It went forth from its nest like a 
dove, with innocence in his eye, as if on a mission of peace, and came 
back as a bird' of prey to feed its young in high places upon the vi- 
tals of the nation, which it bore in its bloody talons. Treason had 
jscattered the Army to the remote parts of the Nation. It had dispersed 



6 

.<&ur feeble Navy to distant ports. It had sent all the arms that it coutJ 
make available without detection, from our arsenals, to the South. — 
it had attempted to put its tools in authority as commanders of our 
navy-yards and forts. It had secured, before anything could be done 
to prevent, all the forts, and consequently all the ports, on the Atlan- 
tic coast South of Fortress Monroe, except Fort Pickens and Key 
West. It blockaded and held the Mississippi River from its mouth 
to Cairo, Illinois. It drew every Slave State into the vortex of its re- 
bellion except Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky and Missouri ; Mis- 
souri only being saved by timely interposition of Federal arms, and 
Kentucky and Maryland only saved through a wholesome fear of them. 
The United States Treasury was empty. Treason only left the Vice 
President's chair when Mr. Lfncgln was inaugurated. Everything 
was to be done, and there was nothing with which to do it, but the 
crudest material. An army was to be enlisted, and trained in the art 
of war. Officers were to be commissioned, and taught, or tried.-^ 
Commanding Generals were to be tried, and retired or emerge from 
the obscurity of subordinates by tlie force of their genius. — I do not 
at present think of a sigle General of our forces, who has greatly sig- 
nalized himself in the war, who was in a position of high command 
when the rebellion broke out. — A navy was to be created with which 
to blockade thirty-six hundred miles of difficult coast. Jealousy of 
our growth and the threatening aspect of our free institutions had 
made foreign powers lend the ear to rebel emissaries. Complies^ 
tions with these powers were looming up on the edge of the horizon. 
The war was to be carried on with every advantage of strategic points, 
and capabilities of defence in favor of rebellion. Twelve millions oif 
people were claimed to be represented in arms against the Govern- 
ment. Last, but not least, social, commercial and political connections 
with the South, seemed to threaten almost any policy which might 
^^d^ted, with a division of the North. Such was the state of af- 
ram^peu Mr. Lincoln became President, or so soon afterward, that 
no action on his part could have prevented it. Now, what is the fact? 
The sea-ports of the rebellion, with the ex-ception of Galveston, have 
all been re-possessed. The forts commanding the entrance to these 
ports, have all been captured and occupied. The Mississippi and 
Cumberland and Tennessee Rivers have long been open to naviga- 
tion. The arsenals and armories and military stores of the Confede- 
racy, have been, in great measure, destroyed. Its chief lines of com- 
munication have been cut ; its means of supply have been crippled. 
Its Capital has been taken ; its best army and Generals have surren- 
dered. Its President has fled. He, who in Richmond, in June, 1861, 
declared Mr. Lincoln an ignorant usurper, in April, 1865 finds him- 
eelf a fugitive, with the probable anticipation of finding himself an 
exile, or an outlaw. The last army on which the Cortederacy can re^ 
ly for any check to its desperate fortunes, if not alreaay surrendered, 
is fleeing before overwhelming numbers of victorious legions. The 
rebellion is crushed. In crushing it, its corner-stone — Slavery — has 



i>een broken in pieces — visible indeed in its fragments, but never, 
^ we believe, to be re-united, but finally to disappear when the rub- 
bish of the great conspiracy is removed. All this has been done un- 
der the administration of Abkaham Lincoln. We do not ignore the 
justice of our cause and the favor of God. May our nation, taught 
gratitude and devotion, ever render to Him supreme glory. We do 
not overlook the service of other great and good men. We can nev- 
er forget the pecuniary, and bloody sacrifices ol a great people- But 
we do say, that the very fact of administering our national aftairs in 
the midst of such portentous perils, and bringing them to so salutary 
and glorious an issue, must stamp the man in whose hands the reins 
of Government are, as one of the mighty men of all ages. Laboulaye, 
an eminent Frenchman, said of him in the college of Finance — "IVIr. 
Lincoln is a greater man than Caesar." Another eminent French 
politician said — "Ko Monarch in Europe could carry on such a col- 
lossal war in front, while harrassed by so many factions and fault- 
finders behind." Whether these eulogiuras are fully deserved ov not, 
is a question which we can afford te^eave for the future to decide ; 
but we must be blind not to see, tlm^none but a mighty man could 
have been instrumental in accomplishing such great thmgs. 

Mr. Lincoln was a mighty man in his comprehension of the situa- 
tion of all our affairs. It is now evident that his mind grasped the 
difficulties of his own position and all the imperilled interests of the 
nation. He was mighty in his knowledge of the right kind of men 
with whom to surround himself as his counsellors and coadjutors. If 
■we judge men, not by what their friends or enemies say of them, 
but by what they have accomplished, then it must be acknowledged 
that our President brought around him most able and efficient men ; 
— men competent to achieve, in their departments, all reasonable re- 
quirements. 

President Lincoln was mighty in his singleness and tenacity of 
purpose. The oath of his office is as follows : — " I do solemnly»&^ear, 
that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United 
States, and will, to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and de- 
fend the Constitution of the United States." This oath required that 
he maintain the territorial integrity of the United States. He held 
the maintainance of Union ever before his eyes. He never lost sight 
of it. He was wise enough to see that military pow^er in rebellion 
must be broken by military power ; and he broke it. He has pre- 
served, protected and defended the Constitution, according to the 
best of his ability. If any act which he has ever done, has seemed 
to be in violation of a single provision of the Constitution, that act has 
already been endorsed by the people as a means of preserving thB 
whole Constitution. President Lincoln did not make oath that the 
people of the United States should not change the Constitution ac- 
cording to the methods provided in it. If any article of the Consti- 
tution should pass away, or be changed, as one of the measures of 
the people and of the President, it will be done without violence to 



tfae Constitution. As a measure of war, to Cripple the militdry pow- 
fer of the rebellion, and as a measure ot policy to prevent the recoc- 
hition of the Southerii Confederacy by European powers, President 
Lincoln issued the Proclamation of Emancipation. That this Proc- 
lamation has helped to destroy the rebellion, is perfectly manifest. 
That it helped to prevent recognition of the Confederacy, by France 
Jlnd England, is probable. That the emancipation of the slaves wds 
in accordance with his humane instincts and religious principles, is 
doubtless also true. That the President foresaw, or thought he fore- 
saw, that the perpetuation of slavei'y would imperil the existence of 
the nation, as it had already threatened its destruction^ is true. But 
that emancipation was the great aim, and that the maintenance of the 
Union was the subordinate purpose, of the President, is without any 
evidence. Whatev^er else the President did, or might seem to do, his 
one great thought and pui'pose, adhered to in all complications and 
vicissitudes, ih the exultation of victory, and the gloom of defeat, was 
the maintainance of Constitutional Government, over the whole land. 
He moved as steadily toward ^|| end, as the Mississippi River, here 
deflected eastward, there deflected westward, yonder turned north- 
"Ward, yet always tenaciously travels Southward to the Sea. 

President Lincoln was mighty in those traits which endear a man 
to the people. There was simplicity of character— honesty — 'in all 
his principles and deportment. He never made any pretence. He 
never wore a mask. He never assumed a character. He never tried 
to conceal the fact that he was from the ranks of the people, as do 
some little great men. While he comprehended all the great ques- 
tions of State, he seemed to talk and act as though every other man 
could comprehend them. He met every man as his equal. He did 
not straiten himself up before his coachman. He did not. apologise 
to a foreign Ambassador that he had not the advantages of an early 
education. He would converse as freely with the one as with the 
othsa', if occasion demanded. He would apply to each the same joke, if 
it were applicable. A little gaunt, and awkward to the Beaux Brum- 
mels of society, he was nevertheless familiar and easy with all men ; 
never insipid, never obscene ; always good-natured, always sensible, 
sometimes unconsciously majestic, as a mountain in the middle of a 
plain. 

President Lincoln was mighty in timing his acts so as to secure the 
co-operation of the people. A man of the people, he comprehended 
the people. Comprehending the vital point of the war, that it»iwas a 
war in behalf of the people against an aristocratic faction, of the many 
against the few, of man as man, against men, usurping place above 
man, he saw that he could do nothing to sustain the Government, un- 
less he could have their endorsement and co-operation. Thus, if ho 
had called in the first instance for more than 75,000 troops, the peo- 
ple would have been afraid of usurpation. If he had issued the Proo- 
iaraation of Emancipation one year, or six months before he did, the 
people would not have sustained him. The same may be said of tha 



JProciaination of Amnesty. But in every case in wliich bis acts wefe 
new, and without precedent, the people were pufiiciently prepared for 
thera to sustain them and ultimately to ^ive them an emphatic sup- 
port. A writer in the North American lievew, says "Mr. Lincoln, 
as it seems to us in reviewing his career, though we have sometimes 
in our impatience thought otherwise, has always waited, as a wise 
man should,- till tlie right ffloment brought up all his reserves." 

Mr. Lincoln was great in the magnanimity and generosity of his 
tiature. Like all public men ho had bitter political enemies, but 
there is no record of any revenges conceived ov harbored by him. 
Certainly no man could be more traduced than he has been. But 
where has he ever been otherwise than generous towards his enemies ? 
For more than four years he has been the object of such abuse from 
the southern press, that one would almost think, that ribaldry and 
abuse were the native dialect of the writers, yet no man at the North 
has been more kindly in liis feelings towards those in rebellion than 
he. Since his death. Gen. Lee has said that he surrendered as much 
to the benignity of the President, as to the artillery of Gen. Grant. 

Mr. Lincoln was mighty in trust in God. He believed that the 
cause of our country, as against rebellion, was favored by God. He 
believed that it would ultimately triumph. His Pastor— ^Rev. Dr. 
Qurley, of Washington-^says of him and this trust — "Through the 
power and blessing of God, this confidence strengthened him in all 
his hours of anxiety and toil, and inspired him with calm and cheer- 
ing hope, when others were inclining to gloom and despondency. 
Never shall I forget the emphasis and deep emotion Avith which he 
said in this very room— the East room — to a company oi' clergymen 
and others, who called to pay him their respects in the darkest days 
of our civil conflict : ' Gentlemen, my hope of success in this great 
and terrible struggle rests on the immutable foundation, the justice 
and goodness of God ; and when events are very threatening, and 
prospects are very dark, I still hope that in some way which man 
can not see, all will be well in the end, because our cause is just, and 
God is on our side.' " Still further Dr. Gurley says : 

"We admired his child-like simplicity, his freedom from guile 
and deceit, his staunch and sterling integrity, his kind and forgiving 
temper, his industry and patience, his persistent self-sacrificing 
devotion to all the duties of his eminent position from the least to 
the greatest ; his readiness to hear and consider the cause of the 
poor and humble, the suffering and oppressed ; his charity towards 
those who questioned tlie correctness of his opinions and the wisdom 
of his policy ; his wonderful skill in reconciling differences among 
the friends of the Union, leading them away from abstractions, and 
inducing them to work together harmoniously for the national weal j 
his true and enlarged philanthropy that knew no distinction of color 
or race, but regarded all men as brethren, and endowed alike by 
their Creator with certain inalienable rights, among which are life, 
liberty and the pursuit of happiness ; his iufleiiblc purpoi^e that what 



freedofa bad gained in oirr terrible civil strife, should nevev be \ost^ 
and that the end of the war should be the end of slavery and a con- 
sequence of rebellion ; his readiness to spend and be spent for the 
attainment of such a triumph — a triumph, the fruits of which should 
be as wide-spreaiiing as the earth, and as enduring as the sun. All 
these things commanded and fixed our admiration, and stamped upon 
his character and life the unmistakable impress of greatness. 

"Butm-ore sublime thaaa any or all of these, more holy and influ- 
ential, more beautiful and sti'ong and sustaining, was his abiding 
confidence in God, and in the final triumph of truth and righteous- 
ness through Him and for His sake. * * * And this it seems to 
me after being near him steadily and with him often for more than 
four years, is the principle by which rrrore than by any oth^er, he 
being dead yet speaketh." How pertinent are the words of David's 
lament to us in our national bereavement — how is the mighty fallen! 

Secondly. — These words also naturally lead us to look at th^e 
manner and purpose of the death of our President. How is the 
mighty fallen. The facts and circumstances of the assassination are 
familiat to you all. I shall not attempt to portray them so as to 
make the tragedy any more vivid than it now is in your minda. 
When you arose from your beds a week ago yesterday morning, yort 
little thought such tidings would meet your ears. A gloom settled 
-over the public mind from Maine to California. Hundreds of thou^ 
sands mourned, almost as they would mourn for one of their own 
families. The nation has never had such a sorrow. There has 
never been, in this generation, so universal and deep a grief. 

As the tidings flew over the nation, there flashed through every 
mind a process of reasoning, almost as swift as an intuition, which 
showed that the deed belonged to the rebellion. It had in it all the 
pride, and assumption of justice in avenging injured innocense, 
which characterizes those men who fired the southern heart, and led 
them into the crime of rebellion. It had in it the domineering, 
violent, tyrannic will, which in many minds, is the legitimate and 
necessary fruit of slavery. It had in its preparation that cool-blooded 
malignity, and in its execution that diabolic satisfaction, which 
belongs to those authorities that commanded, and those subordinates 
who superintended, the torture and starvation of our prisoners. We 
are all no more sure to-day, since we have the proofs, than when the 
conviction flashed on our minds with the intelligence of the deed, 
that this assassination is the legitimate ofispring of slavery and 
rebellion. It may not have had the knowledge or the sanction of 
the authorities at Richmond ; it may not have been a part of a very 
wide-spread conspiracy at this time ; it may have been wider spread 
than we have thought ; it may have been known to more men than 
we have imagined ; but it was done in the interest of the rebellion, 
for the sake of securing for it, what the arbitrament of arms, and the 
slow murder of our brave men, prisoners in their hands, had failed 
to secure ; or it Tvas done out of the furious spite that the Confeder- 



ii 

acy had fulled and that the South was vulued. This was the manner 
and purpose on one side of the assassination of our President. 

But there is another side. God, whose pavilion is the dark waters 
and thicJc clouds of the skies, was hovering over that deed, not in 
causing it, not in approbation of it, but in permitting it, in over- 
ruling it for goad. 

First, it was an easy passage from this life to immortal life. We 
have reason to think that Mr. Lincoln was a true child of Godj^^d 
that he died only to live. His death was easy. There was no gloomy 
foreboding of dissolution in it. There was no pain in it. He passed 
away as one overtaken with sudden sleep. 

Again, it was a sore chastening which the nation probably needed. 
Men trusted in the President. Most men felt that the nation was 
safe in his hands^ They believed in his honesty, his integrity, his 
wisdom and magnanimity and patriotism. All men had learned to 
believe that he would not usurp the power of the people. The na- 
tion felt that liberty was safe with him ; safe from despotism in his 
hands ; safe from overtlirow by rebellion, or attack by foreign pow- 
ers. We were flushed with victory. We were almost beside our- 
selves with joy. We tliought we had the 'greatest generals, the 
noblest armies, the safest and best man at the head of affairs, of any 
nation on the globe. God has shown us that in a moment he can 
humble our greatness, and cast the crown of our pride to the dust- 
He has shown us, that He only is our defence ; that our strength 
and refuge arc in him ; that if we will not be moved we must build 
our confidence upon th€ Eternal Rock. How quickly God could 
remove all Oiur mighty men, and take away the armor in which we 
trust, and divide our spoil. 

Again, by this crime and calamity, God calls upon the nation to 
cultivate respect tor magistrates as representatives of the law. The 
crime of assassinating our Chief Magistrate is the legitimate fruit of 
the asperities indulged in by extreme men of our political parties in 
great political excitements. In this case irreverence and hatred and 
professed principle fired with passion are gone forther than ever be- 
fore in our country ; farther, perhaps, than they ever will go in the 
North ; but they should be a warning to us in our own persons and 
in the .education of our children, and also in educating others by 
rneaos of the public opinion Avhich we help to form. The apostle 
Peter* characterizes certain wicked, dangerous men, as "presump- 
tuous, self-willed," as "not afraid to speak evil of dignities." 
Great masses of our people seem to have no reverence for any au- 
thority. We must not confound liberty to review and discuss the 
principles and measures of parties and of men in office, with that 
license of speech which is fiery and denunciatory and without reason, 
and which tends to destroy all regard for law and the authorities of 
Jaw. This license is an evil which has been growing these many 

. . : . — — — . . ., ■,-■ .. ■ I .— ■-- — »■ -^ ■ ' 1 — .■■■I. .- *■■■ — :-••-• -r ' ' ■ ■■ ■ »- 

* 2 Peterj 3, 10. 



12 

years, and vvluch helped bring on tbe woes of war. President Bv 
CHANAN was denounced witli a fierceness which tended to make men 
despise authorities rather than to give a just idea of the evils of his 
administration. President Ltncolx has been denounced in language 
no better than the deed which has just been done. If those who 
have spoken thus, cherish the feelings which they seem to express, 
Ood holds them guilty of murder in their hearts. We must culti- 
va^% reverence for authority, or by words and deeds of violence 
«ve shall provoke a despotism which will extinguish all our liberties. 
We must learn to love our country and honor authority, more than 
we love or hate parties or men. 

Still another providential benefit may accrue to our country from 
this murder. It calls our attention to, and impresses upon us the 
principle upon Avhich human Government rests, and by which it 
must be maintained. 

By the tidings of the assassination many were unnerved with 
grief ; many more were fired with a deep indignation and a desire 
for vengeance. While every one with a spark of loyalty and a 
sense of justice in his soul, wished that the assassins aud their im- 
mediate accomplices 'should be speedily brought to the gallows, 
there was^ and still remains a feeling beyond this — viz: that the 
rebellion is responsible for this crime, and that the rebellion must pay 
in blood. There were diifereut degrees of this feeling ; some of 
comparative calmness, and others of extreme violence. But in every 
mind tlierc was a demand for justice which alone would satisfy its 
innate and irrepressible feelings.— Mingled with this feeling in some 
instances, there was doubtless great evil ; perhaps a murderous feel- 
ing ; yet the universal voice was a testimony that God had endowed 
jiien with an ineradicable sense of right. Private revenges cher- 
ished and executed, are sinful because God has not given the sword 
to a private individual to revenge his own injuries. But he has 
given it to the magistrate to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil 
towards the State. Governjneut rests upon justice. Justice is ex- 
pressed in law. The maintenance of law, and consequently of 
Governjneut, rests on the sanctions of law in the hands of magis- 
trates. Those sanctions are represented by the sword, compelling 
.obedience or punishing resistance. The punishment due to those 
who desti'oy their fellow-men, or subvert the State, is death. God's 
word is specific in regard to the death penalty: "^ Whoso sheddeth 
man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed."* Christ says they 
that take the sword shall perish with the sword.f The magistrate 
^' beareth not the sword in vain."| The magistrate does bear the 
sword in vain if it executes no justice, aud inspires no terror in re- 
gard to crime. — The nation is led by the recent criuje to demand 
adequate punishment of its perpetrators and plotters. The people 
are beginning to see, and wisely to see, that it is not full justice 

» Gen. 9, 6. + Matt. 26, 53. J Rom. 18, 4, 



13 

merely to meet confederate armies upon the field of battle and van- 
quish them. The great deceivers of the Southern people, the great 
plotters of rebellion, ought to die by the hand of the law. We 
ought to commend them to the mercy of God and pray for their 
repcntence and cleansing in the blood of Christ. But the State 
ought to slay them, if they do not escape to other lands. Mercy 
shown to them is imbecility ; it is dishonor of God who has given 
this people in trust with a government ; it dishonors the ii|W>n. 
We do justice to those who sustain law only by executing law upon 
those who try to undermine it- — Certainly we should abide as a na- 
tion by the terms which we have given to prisoners of war. But as 
a people we ought to demand for the honor of law, for the welfare 
of our nation, that there shall be such an exhibition of severity 
toward leading conspirators against the life of our nation, as shall 
forever deter every man from attempting, or thinking, to destroy it. 

If I mistake not, God in his providence in this national affliction, 
calls upon the nation to seal the honors, which we pay to our noble 
President, and which we owe to His most glorious name, by com- 
pleting the work which he so nearly finished. The two things by 
which Mr. Lincoln will be principally known to the future historian 
and to the world, are the vanquisliing of the armies of the rebellion ^ 
and the emancipation of the slave. Let us remove all the rubish of f^ 
this rebellion so that nothing shall be left. Let us bury its foiu: car- 
cass so deep that our children's children shall never see a trace of it 
except in the cities of the dead. — Let us demand that no man made 
free by the Proclamation of the President shall ever again be made 
A slave. If it would be nationally infamous for us to seize and hang 
those prisoners of war who have been released on their parole, unless 
they violate it or commit fresh crime, so it would be nationally infa- • 
raous for us to enslave those made free by war. — May no slave by 
authority of the United States, ever tread our soil again. The 
crushing of the rebellion is a victory over despotism in the name of 
the people. The emancipation of the slave is a victory over despot- 
ism in the name of man. Now, in the name of God let us perfect 
our civil and religious liberty ; — let them both be so large that men 
oan do and say and think anything not inconsistent with law, that it 
may be seen in the hastening millennium that we have prepared the 
way of the Lord. 

You have doubtless noticed, my hearers, that the assassin's shot 
was dealt to our honored President, upon that day, which in the calen- 
dar of the church, commemorates the crucifixion of our Lord Jesus 
Christ. While it would be blasphemy to attempt to make the two 
events parallel in dignity and in their influence upon the world, 
since the one was the slaying of a mere man, the other of the God- 
man as an atoning sacrifice for the world, it may not be wrong foi 
us to draw a finite line of thought, whicli may serve as a lesson to 
us in our calamitous bereavement, parallel a little way, with that infj- 
jiite thought and gracious work of God. Christ died for the world, 



14 

fM)t tliat tlie world should linger around his scpulcLre in pef-petual an^ 
uonaitigated sorrow, but that dying with him unto sin, it should, with 
regenerate, divinely imparted force, come forth a believing world in 
the vigor and purity and bliss of the life everlasting. Our Presi- 
dent died, in one sense, for this nation, that the people following 
blm to his grave in the bitterness of their sorrow, contemplating hia 
acts of justice and humanity, his life martyred to the maintainance 
of Vl%^ law and the dissemination of freedom, may awake to new^ 
fliess of life, forever bwyipg their dead works in his grave J 



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